With an imaginary letter, a disputed invitation and controversial comments about a fallen soldier’s parents, Donald Trump’s weekend was not going well even before he seemed to endorse the Russian annexation of Crimea, in opposition to U.S. policy and international law.

This was a weekend Trump may hope to forget, and one Democrats will work hard to make sure voters remember. It seemed to demonstrate all of the flaws — trouble with the truth, an inability to let criticism go unanswered and a lack of knowledge of world affairs — that Republicans fear Trump will be unable to put behind him and that Democrats hope will be the billionaire’s undoing come November.

There was an attempt by some of Trump's top donors, reported by POLITICO on Friday, to arrange a meeting with Charles and David Koch, the deep-pocketed conservative donors who have so far shunned Trump. That attempt was rebuffed by the Kochs, sources told POLITICO. But Trump took to Twitter on Saturday night to say no, it was actually the Kochs who tried to arrange a meeting, but he rejected them.

There was Trump’s claim that the NFL sent him a letter complaining about the debate schedule. The NFL says no such letter exists.

And there were attacks on the family of the late Capt. Humayun Khan, insinuations that his mother was forbidden from speaking while onstage at the Democratic National Convention and a claim that his father had “no right” to disparage Trump.

All of that came before the airing of an interview Sunday in which Trump appeared to endorse the Russian annexation of Crimea, saying on ABC’s "This Week" that “the people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were.” He also stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “not going into Ukraine” before admitting “well, he’s there in a certain way.”The series of events only complicates life further for those Republicans who have tied themselves to Trump. His running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who has a son in the Marines, will inevitably be asked about the Khan controversy. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan both released statements on the controversy praising Khan and distancing themselves from Trump — without actually naming Trump.

It was a weekend that could have been defined by better news for the Republican nominee. A Friday economic report showed disappointingly slow growth, prompting the front page of The Wall Street Journal on Saturday to declare the U.S. in the “weakest recovery since ’49.” The weekend was a moment for Trump to hammer home his message that President Barack Obama has failed as a steward of the economy.

But it was not to be.

The trouble began Saturday, when ABC aired segments of the “This Week” interview. In it, Trump claimed that Ghazala Khan, who stood by her husband’s side during his impassioned address at the DNC, was perhaps not allowed to speak.

"If you look at his wife, she was standing there,” Trump said. "She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.”

Ghazala Khan has said she did not speak because she still becomes overwhelmed when discussing her late son.

“Walking onto the convention stage, with a huge picture of my son behind me, I could hardly control myself. What mother could? Donald Trump has children whom he loves. Does he really need to wonder why I did not speak?”she wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post on Sunday. “Donald Trump said that maybe I wasn’t allowed to say anything. That is not true. My husband asked me if I wanted to speak, but I told him I could not. My religion teaches me that all human beings are equal in God’s eyes. Husband and wife are part of each other; you should love and respect each other so you can take care of the family.”

Trump went on to contend that he, too, has made sacrifices, mentioning his work in business.The condemnation of Trump’s remarks was swift and nearly universal.

“There's only one way to talk about Gold Star parents: with honor and respect. Capt. Khan is a hero. Together, we should pray for his family,” tweeted Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has declined to endorse Trump.Hillary Clintonhit Trump Sunday for what she called “insults and disparaging remarks about Muslims” directed at the Khans.

But the Trump campaign went further, releasing a statement Saturday night in which Trump called Capt. Khan “a hero to our country” but went on to say that Khan’s father had “no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution.”

As the criticism continued Sunday, Trump took to twitter again, writing: “I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention. Am I not allowed to respond? Hillary voted for the Iraq war, not me!”

In the clip released Saturday, Trump also said that the NFL had sent him a letter complaining that two of the three presidential debates were scheduled at the same time as NFL games. Earlier in the week, Trump had accused Clinton of attempting to rig the debates, which are scheduled by a nonpartisan commission; the dates had been set last September. Almost immediately Saturday, the NFL confirmed that no such letter had been sent.

Meanwhile, Trump tweeted Saturday evening to deny the report about requesting the meeting with the Kochs.

“I turned down a meeting with Charles and David Koch. Much better for them to meet with the puppets of politics, they will do much better!” he wrote.

The Kochs, and their deep-pocketed network, have kept a distance from Trump, and officials in the network have said they will devote resources to down-ballot races. The report that Trump sought a meeting undercut his previous criticism of the elite conservative donor class. His pronounced disdain for that group has won him plaudits from disenchanted voters, but that disdain seems to be fading as the Trump campaign reckons with the Clinton campaign’s financial edge.A top Koch aide reiterated to POLITICO on Saturday night that no overtures had been made to meet with Trump, as far as the aide knew.

As Trump’s statements on the Khans landed on the front pages Sunday, the “This Week” interview contained another bombshell: Trump’s apparent support for the Russian annexation of Crimea and the claims — quickly withdrawn — that Putin had not made incursions into Ukraine.

This directly contradicts U.S. policy, codified in a 2014 law, that “condemn[s] the unjustified military intervention of the Russian Federation in the Crimea region of Ukraine.” That measure was approved by the Senate on a voice vote, passed the Republican-controlled House by 378-34 and was signed into law by Obama.

“Today, he gamely repeated Putin’s argument that Russia was justified in seizing the sovereign territory of another country by force,” Sullivan said in a statement Sunday. “This is scary stuff. But it shouldn’t surprise us. This comes on the heels of his tacit invitation to the Russians to invade our NATO allies in Eastern Europe. And it’s yet more proof why Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be Commander in Chief.”

With just over three months until the election, the weekend after the Democratic convention was a chance for Trump to steal back the spotlight. He did, though not in the way Republicans would have hoped.
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The father of a slain Muslim American soldier assailed Donald Trump as a "black soul" Sunday in an impassioned exchange with the Republican presidential candidate over the qualities required in a US leader.

Khizr Khan electrified the Democratic convention last week with a tribute to his fallen son that ended with a steely rebuke that Trump had "sacrificed nothing" for his country.

Trump defended himself in an interview with ABC's "This Week," insisting he had made "a lot of sacrifices" while suggesting that Khan's wife, who stood silent on the convention stage as her husband spoke, had not been allowed to talk.

But Khan shot back in interviews on US television news shows, while his wife Ghazala explained in a Washington Post op-ed that she had been too grief-stricken to speak.

"Without saying a thing, all the world, all America, felt my pain," she wrote. "Whoever saw me felt me in their heart."

Their son, US Army captain Humayun Khan, was killed in Iraq in 2004 in a roadside explosion.

Khizr Khan, speaking on CNN, accused Trump of lacking the moral compass and empathy needed to be the country's leader.

"He is a black soul. And this is totally unfit for the leadership of this beautiful country," Khan said.

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump on Sunday of scapegoating the parents of a Muslim soldier killed in Iraq, after the Republican nominee took issue with remarks the soldier's father made at the Democratic National Convention.

Trump, in an ABC interview that aired on Sunday, questioned why Ghazala Khan, mother of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, stood quietly by her husband, Khizr Khan, as he took the stage at last week's Democratic convention in Philadelphia.

Trump suggested the mother might not have been "allowed" to speak.

Speaking at a church service, Clinton said Trump had been insulting to a family who had sacrificed so much. She also used the episode to contrast her own religious faith with that of Trump, who has spoken of religion on the campaign trail infrequently.

"I don't begrudge anyone of any other faith or of no faith at all, but I do tremble before those who would scapegoat other Americans, who would insult people because of their religion, their ethnicity, their disability," Clinton said in remarks at the Imani Temple Ministries, an African-American church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

"It's just not how I was raised, that's not how I was taught in my church," said Clinton, who grew up as a Methodist. "Tim Kaine and I are people of faith," she said, referring to her vice presidential running mate, who is a Catholic.

Top Republican lawmakers House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also condemned Trump's remarks in separate statements, although they did not mention their presidential candidate by name.[snipped]
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...................................................................................................................................................................Will the GOP repudiate Trump’s cruelty?
By E.J. Dionne, July 31, 2016Republican politicians face a choice. They can accept Hillary Clinton's invitation to abandon Donald Trump and prevent a redefinition of their party as a haven for bigotry. Or they can prop Trump up, try to maximize his vote — and thereby tarnish themselves for a generation.

If there were any doubts about Trump's disqualifying lack of simple decency and empathy, he resolved them in an interview on ABC News over the weekend with a characteristically cruel and self-centered attack on Khizr and Ghazala Khan, an American Muslim couple whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in the line of duty in Iraq.

With his wife by his side, Khizr Khan delivered what was the most devastating attack on Trump during the Democratic National Convention. Khan directly challenged Trump's strongman ignorance: "Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy." And he said this of Trump: "You have sacrificed nothing and no one."

Most politicians — most human beings — would have humbly declared that no sacrifice is comparable to losing a son or daughter in service to the nation. Instead, Trump said he had made many sacrifices because (I'm not making this up) he "created thousands and thousands of jobs." He said of Khizr Khan's speech: "Who wrote that? Did Hillary's scriptwriters write it?"

And then he broke new ground, even for him, in heartlessness. "His wife," Trump said, "if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have something to say."Every Republican politician and commentator who continues to say that Trump is a superior or even morally equivalent choice to Hillary Clinton will now own their temporary leader's brutality for the rest of their political careers.

Many humane Republicans know this. Ohio Gov. John Kasich spoke for them when he tweeted that "there's only one way to talk about Gold Star parents: with honor and respect."

This is a moment of truth for GOP leaders who passively accepted and sometimes encouraged an extremism that trafficked in religious and racial prejudice and painted President Obama as an illegitimate, power-hungry leader.

The party's traditional chieftains assumed they could use these themes to rally an angry, aging base of white voters while keeping the forces of right-wing radicalism under control. They did not anticipate Trump. He spent years courting the far right with his charges that Obama was born abroad and set himself up in contrast to an establishment that cynically exploited its feelings.

Now, in Ronald Reagan's revered phrase, comes a time for choosing. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell look feeble and vacillating when they try to distance themselves from Trump outrages while maintaining their support for his election. They embody a calculating timidity as they worry about Trump's impact on their party while also fearing for the electoral chances of the rest of their candidates if they push away Trump's constituency.

Khizr Khan called their bluff in an interview on Friday with MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell: "This is a moral imperative for both leaders, to say to him, 'Enough.'" Had Trump been watching, he would have known that Ghazala Khan also spoke out. Her reticence at the convention, she explained, arose from grief over her lost son that made it difficult even to talk about him. She powerfully made her point again in an essay published online Sunday morning by The Washington Post.

Up to now, it has fallen largely to conservative intellectuals and former Republican officials to express their horror over Trump's amoral approach to politics, his incoherent, dictator-friendly foreign policy, and his racist, exclusionary definition of what it means to be an American.

A Democratic convention awash in American flags celebrated American diversity in the name of a very old ideal most conservatives share: that we are a country bound by ideas, not a nation defined by blood, soil or a single religious tradition.

By contrasting Reagan's "Morning in America" to Trump's "Midnight in America," Clinton invited such conservatives to abide a term of her leadership in order to avoid the damage a self-involved practitioner of a nasty brand of flimflam could do to their cause and their country.

Clinton Republicans and ex-Republicans could thus be this generation's Reagan Democrats. In repudiating Trump for Clinton, they will not be abandoning their ideology. They will be making a moral statement that their movement will not tolerate an opportunist so corrupt and so vile that, when given a choice, he pandered to religious intolerance rather than honoring the sacrifice of a brave young American.
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...................................................................................................................................................................Trump draws an even harder line on tax returns
By Steve Benen, July 29, 2016

In October 2012, just days ahead of the last presidential election, Donald Trump published a tweet directed at President Obama. “Why does Obama believe he shouldn’t comply with record releases that his predecessors did of their own volition?” the Republican complained. “Hiding something?”

Four years later, Trump happens to be facing extremely similar questions. Every major-party presidential nominee since Watergate has, of their own volition, voluntarily released their tax returns for public scrutiny. Trump, however, is refusing – despite having said he would release his returns, despite the precedent set by others, and despite the obvious need given multiple ongoing controversies.

Last night, as TPM noted, Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren pressed Trump on the matter, and he continued to say he wouldn’t disclose the materials.

Van Susteren pressed Trump, asking why he is unwilling to release tax returns that are no longer under audit, even if he still refuses to publicize his most recent documents.

The GOP nominee may not appreciate this, but when a presidential candidate is hiding something, and brags that he’s received “very little pressure,” he’s effectively inviting additional pressure.

In the same interview, Trump added, “I remember with Mitt Romney four years ago, everybody wanted his, and his is a peanut compared to mine. It’s like a peanut. It’s very small…. Now, they finally got it in September. He decided to give it. And they found a couple of little minor things. Little things that didn’t mean anything…. They found a little sentence and they made such a big deal. He might have lost the election over that.”

It’s not clear what “little sentence” Trump is referring to from Romney’s tax returns, but Trump nevertheless believes Romney’s disclosure cost him politically – which apparently is contributing to Trump’s insistence on secrecy.

Note, however, the broader shift in explanations.

For months, Trump and his campaign have said secrecy was required because of an IRS audit. The defense never made any sense – others, including Richard Nixon, released their returns to the public despite an audit – and now Trump is shifting his posture, arguing that there may be information in his tax documents that would hurt his candidacy.

That may be true, but it’s a terrible defense. It’s inherently problematic when a candidate for the nation’s highest office effectively says, “I could honor norms and share my background with the public, but then I might lose, so I’m choosing secrecy instead.”

Trump’s tax returns could shed light on whether he’s lying about his wealth, whether he actually paid income taxes at all, the extent of his Russian ties, and even his controversial charitable record. These questions aren’t going away, and based on Trump’s rhetoric last night, they should probably start getting louder.
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A federal government shutdown would occur a little more than five weeks before the 2016 election. Unless Congress decided to leave town while the government’s doors were shut, electorally vulnerable representatives and senators (and there are many more Republicans than Democrats in this category) who will want to be home campaigning will be forced to stay in Washington instead of being able to going back to their districts or states.
In other words, it shouldn’t happen.

Second, think about the politics.

Assuming it lasted just a week, a shutdown would end just as early voting began in many states and it would likely be the event most on those voters’ minds.

For those who wait [to] vote on Election Day, there wouldn’t be enough time for congressional Republicans to change the subject. As a result, the bad taste many people get because of a government shutdown would still be on their tongues as they went to the polls.

Again, a shutdown shouldn’t happen.

Third, think about the optics.

A government shutdown this October would dramatically reinforce the idea that the House and Senate GOP leadership — which has repeatedly promised it would make Washington work, would prove Republicans could govern and would show that they would re-impose “regular order” to get Congress running smoothly — had failed miserably.

So no shutdown, right?

Fourth, this would put Donald Trump in a very difficult spot. He would either have to support a Republican leadership that wouldn’t seems to be in control, or would have to criticize it and put the GOP House and Senate majorities in further jeopardy. Given Trump’s propensity for talking about himself rather than identifying with the GOP, the strong suspicion by many congressional Republicans is that he would be critical rather than supportive and that the odds of them being reelected will decrease.

And yet…a government shutdown this fall is actually being mentioned by some Republicans as something that could happen or should be considered.

Some of the talk is inevitable given the appalling appropriations situation. The House is only scheduled to be in session for 17 days in September with no votes scheduled before 6:30 p.m. on four of those days and no votes after 3 p.m. on four others.

That will leave only 9 full days before the fiscal year begins on October 1 for the House to complete work on all 12 appropriations, and it left Washington in July without having passed any of them.

The Senate is in the same situation. It’s only scheduled to be in session in September for 19 days and it hasn’t passed any appropriations either.

In other words, almost as sure as anything can be in U.S. politics these days, a continuing resolution will once again be needed to prevent the federal government from shutting its doors because very few – or more likely none – of the appropriations for the coming year will be enacted.A continuing resolution, which in a previous era would have been relatively noncontroversial, this year will be the equivalent of a political petri dish that includes almost every toxic issue that isn’t dealt with earlier.

Indeed, given that Congress has done so little this year, the CR will likely be the legislative vehicle for almost every tough vote that’s left. Those wanting action on their issue could easily threaten to take their ball and go home if they don’t get what they want. The result could easily a shouldn’t-happen-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it government shutdown.

Expect to see pushes for more for the Pentagon, for raising the caps on military and domestic spending, for Zika funding and for cuts to Planned Parenthood.

The CR could also be where representatives and senators try to push nonbudget issues such as gun control.

And some members will try to use the CR for purely election-related issues. For example, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has already suggested a shutdown might be appropriate if Hillary Clinton isn’t charged with something.

I’m not suggesting that a shutdown this fall is likely…or at least I’m not suggesting that yet. And given that members of Congress typically protect their reelection prospects like they were the crown jewels, you have to assume that they will do anything – including avoiding a shutdown – to make their returning to Congress more likely.

But at this date at the end of July, the possibility of a shutdown cannot be dismissed out of hand.
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...................................................................................................................................................................IF YOU READ NO OTHER POST HERE, PLEASE BE SURE TO READ THIS ONE!
...................................................................................................................................................................This Man's Incredible Story About Hillary Clinton Is Going Viral
By Laura Beck, July 31, 2016

Before Hillary Clinton was the Democratic Party's nominee for President, she was a Senator from New York. (Amongst other things; seriously, this woman has done it all, but we're just here to talk about the Senator part right now.)

While Senator, Hillary apparently helped a man going through a very difficult time. The man, author James Grissom, wrote about his experience with Hillary on his Facebook page in a post that has since gone viral.

In it, he recounts reaching out to Hillary for some major bills he racked up while being treated for bladder cancer. The story powerfully demonstrates Hillary Clinton's commitment to "doing the work," which is pretty much the second motto of her campaign, and it most definitely made it rain on my face. Like, a lot.

Read the whole moving post below:

I thought for a time that Bernie Sanders might be our best option for President. I liked his radical ideas, and I believed, and still believe, that things need to be changed. But then I was reminded that some people speak well and inspire, and others actually show up and get things done. It may not be as inspirational; it may not lead to a slogan or button, but the showing up--consistently and firmly--changes lives.

In February of 2007, when I was working part-time in the bookstore of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was diagnosed with bladder cancer. I did not have insurance, and I did not have savings. The urologist who diagnosed me sent me to Planned Parenthood, where a female physician mapped out the treatment options for me. I was treated for a time by Planned Parenthood physicians, not the cartoon abortionists or criminals they are often said to be. The doctor at Planned Parenthood put me in touch with an oncologist who, when told of my lack of insurance or funds, treated me as a family member, telling me to remind the billing department and other personnel that I was her family member. Being labeled as such entitled me to discounts on my treatment.

It takes a woman. Or women.

I attempted to pay, as well as I could, the fees for the treatment, but the hospital chose to report me to a collection agency, which began legal action. My physician was startled, and suggested that I contact both the billing department and my senator.

The billing department told me I earned too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but I could apply for financial aid offered by the hospital. However, I was told, the collection process would continue.

I contacted the office of my senator, Hillary Clinton, and within two weeks I was speaking to someone in her office, who, at one point, handed the phone to the senator herself. "You did not enter a credit agreement with that hospital," she told me, "so I cannot fathom why they are pursuing you as if you did. In addition, that hospital is aided by the state of New York and the federal government, so they are way out of line. You need to fight this cancer and get well: You don't have time for this nonsense. Let me look into it."

Within a week, the collection calls ceased, and within a month, Hillary Clinton put me in touch with two organizations offering financial aid to people undergoing cancer treatment. These organizations eliminated half of my debt, and within eighteen months, I had paid the remaining amount, without any collection activity or annoying calls.

I just re-read the letter that Hillary Clinton sent to the hospital (It was Roosevelt, if you must know), and in her indignation, she refers to me as her friend. Not a constituent, but a friend. She prevailed upon the proud history of the hospital and the medical profession to do the right thing, and adjudged the collection activity to have been an "unfortunate mistake or oversight."On two occasions I received letters from her, and once a phone call. The doctor from Planned Parenthood and the oncologist recommended by that organization continued to treat me at discounted rates. My friends--again female--at the Museum kept my cancer a secret, and probably saved my job.

I am now receiving treatment through insurance made available through the Affordable Care Act, and while I am cancer-free, there are still follow-up procedures that are necessary.

And yet--Hillary Clinton and Planned Parenthood are villainous, despicable, ready for defunding or defeat. I don't understand that, and I don't understand how we have difficulty in choosing our next President or where our donations should go. But that's me.

That's my time with HIllary Clinton. Sorry I looked away for a time. But now you can deal me in.

...................................................................................................................................................................WHICH SIDE OF THE LAW IS TRUMP ON?
By Michael C. Dorf, July 30, 2016

On the stump and during his acceptance speech at last week’s Republican National Convention, Donald Trump declared himself “the law-and-order candidate.” In using this term, Trump signals support for the vigorous use of force against potential criminals, terrorists and undocumented immigrants.

Trump’s law and order also carries a not-at-all-veiled racial subtext. He will use the law to impose order on “them” (undocumented immigrants, African-Americans protesting racially biased policing, Muslims) in order to protect “us” (white Americans).Trump’s law-and-order message does not just carry racist overtones. It also rests on falsehoods. Despite some local fluctuations, the violent crime rate in America remains substantially lower than it has been in decades. Meanwhile, undocumented immigrants account for a tiny fraction of the violent crime that does occur. And Trump’s vilification of all Muslims because of the terrorist acts of a tiny minority is both profoundly un-American and counter-productive.

Fact-checking Donald Trump is both child’s play and beside the point. His strong-man campaign rests not on facts or sober policy analysis, but on scaring people into trusting him to take tough—albeit mostly unspecified—action.

For example, when FBI crime statistics were cited to debunk Trump’s claims that we are reliving the crime wave of the 1960s-1990s, his campaign manager questioned the FBI’s credibility because its director, James Comey, failed to recommend that Hillary Clinton be prosecuted for her use of a private email server while Secretary of State. If Trump predicted sunshine and it rained instead, his campaign would blame Clinton’s emails, the media, Mexico, Muslims, or Black Lives Matter.

Nonetheless, Trump’s proclamation of law and order should not go unexamined. After all, anyone who is not an anarchist favors both law and order. So what, exactly, is wrong with “law and order”? To answer that question, we can usefully distinguish between the idiomatic use of “law and order” and the cherished value of the rule of law.

Rule of Law

Experts disagree about the precise scope of the concept of the rule of law. As legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron has written, the rule of law is “a multi-faceted ideal.” Its facets include certainty, predictability, even-handedness, impartiality, procedural fairness and more.

Some aspects of the rule of law can come into conflict with one another in concrete cases. For example, strict application of rules without the occasional creation of ad hoc exceptions fosters predictability, but may undermine even-handedness when the rule maker fails to anticipate how a one-size-fits-all rule unfairly lumps together some people who are not similarly situated.

Accordingly, just as reasonable people can and do disagree over what any particular law requires in close cases, so they can disagree over what the rule of law requires in such cases.

But just as the existence of twilight does not mean that there is no distinction between day and night, so the indeterminacy around the edges of the concept of the rule of law does not render it meaningless through and through.

At its core, the rule of law stands in contrast to what is sometimes called the rule of men. As Waldron explains, most fundamentally, the rule of law requires “that people in positions of authority should exercise their power within a constraining framework of public norms, rather than on the basis of their own preferences....”

During various episodes in American history, presidents have said or done things that arguably violated rule-of-law principles. For instance, in response to a Supreme Court decision in favor of the Cherokee, Andrew Jackson purportedly said (but probably did not actually say): Chief Justice “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

More sympathetically, Abraham Lincoln argued that even if he lacked the authority to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus without an act of Congress, the nation’s very survival depended on temporarily sacrificing the rule of law. In an 1861 address to Congress, he famously posed the following rhetorical question: “Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?”

Trump Echoes Nixon

In his own inartful way, Donald Trump has suggested that, like Lincoln before him, he should be permitted to take liberties with the Constitution in order to save the nation.

In a recent interview, Trump defended his proposal to stop immigration from (unspecified) “terrorist” countries with the claim that the Constitution “doesn’t necessarily give us the right to commit suicide as a country.”

As law professor Josh Blackman has noted, this line paraphrases a famous dissent by Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson. More broadly, the notion that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact” is frequently invoked by people who propose sweeping action that seemingly violates the Constitution on grounds of national emergency.

Trump’s implicit suggestion that the nation faces an existential crisis of the sort that confronted Lincoln cannot be taken seriously. Indeed, as noted above, there is much less violent crime in America now than there was the last time that a GOP nominee ran as a law-and-order candidate. Yet if Trump’s echo of Richard Nixon is unwarranted by the facts, it is also chilling.

Nixon abused the office of the presidency by seeking to use its public powers for his own personal and political ends. He compiled an “enemies list” of political opponents and journalists deemed unfriendly, and sought IRS audits, denial of government contracts, and prosecutions based on the list.

But at least Nixon knew enough to try to keep his enemies list secret. Trump, by contrast, has made no effort to disguise the fact that he would use the power of the presidency to settle scores and advance his own personal agenda.

At the Convention, New Jersey Governor turned Trump footman Chris Christie incited the GOP faithful with a speech purporting to try Clinton for supposed crimes. It should go without saying, but I will say anyway, that in mature democracies, candidates for office do not threaten to jail their political opponents.

From Nixon to Trump

To be sure, one can favor law and order in the sense of tough-on-crime policies without threatening the core of the rule of law. Yes, our two most aggressively law-and-order presidential candidates—Nixon and Trump—also undermined the rule of law by abusing (in Nixon’s case) or promising to abuse (in Trump’s case) the powers of the presidency for personal goals. But maybe that is a mere coincidence. Perhaps a platform of law and order does not inherently threaten the rule of law.

Perhaps, but I am skeptical. Even after he left office, Nixon famously displayed a remarkable view of the scope of presidential power when he told David Frost that “when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.”

Although technically speaking about foreign affairs, where there are fewer constitutional constraints on presidential power than domestically, Nixon’s sweeping statement was consistent with his record on domestic affairs as well.

Trump, meanwhile, confuses the public with the personal in other ways. He has thoroughly mixed his campaign with his business enterprises. For example, his campaign rents space from his businesses.

Meanwhile, Melania Trump’s plagiarism from Michelle Obama occurred because a Trump Organization writer with no relevant experience was given duties ordinarily assigned to political professionals.

And most troublingly, Trump has shown no interest in ensuring that his business interests would be run separately from the White House should he win the election. Like Nixon before him, only more so, Trump seems to view the presidency as personal spoils for the victor, rather than a public trust.Rule by Law

Might the “law” part of Trump’s promise of law-and-order nonetheless support some of the ideal of the rule of law? Don’t count on it. Although “law and order” and “rule of law” both contain the word “law,” the concepts are quite different, as illustrated by Trump’s history with the legal system.Trump appears to be both the most litigious person and the most sued person ever to be nominated for the presidency by a major party—and by a very large margin.A USA Today investigation last month found that Trump or his companies were the plaintiff in roughly 1,900 lawsuits and that Trump was the defendant in roughly 1,300. What could possibly explain these numbers?

The short answer is that Trump likes to use the law as a cudgel, frequently filing or threatening baseless lawsuits to intimidate those who cross him—as he did just last week when his lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to the co-author/ghost-writer of Trump’s The Art of the Deal for daring to go public with an expression of remorse for having helped create the Trump myth.

Meanwhile, Trump so often finds himself a defendant because of his standard business modus operandi: He stiffs contractors, lenders, and others whom he owes money, hoping that they will not have the wherewithal to sue. The fact that Trump has persisted in this unscrupulous business practice for decades suggests that he often gets away with it. Thus, the 1,300 lawsuits against him may substantially understate his contempt for his legal obligations.

Taken together, Trump’s quickness to bring or threaten suit and his disregard of his legal obligations paint a picture of someone who regards the law as a useful tool to coerce others but not a restraint on his own behavior.

As a private businessman, his attitude is despicable but the damage is limited. Savvy actors—like the major banks that no longer lend Trump money—can guard against Trump’s chicanery. Caveat trumptor.

Yet, should Trump become president, no one would be safe from his toxic mix of bullying through law and acting above the law. He would replace rule of law with what Chinese scholars callrule by law.

What’s the difference? Authoritarians use law to rule over people but do not subject themselves to law’s constraints.

In borrowing a distinction that figures in debates over the law’s place in the People’s Republic of China, I realize that I am comparing Trump to (nominally communist) authoritarians. I do not make the comparison lightly.

Trump has publicly stated his admiration for brutal former dictators like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi. He criticized Mikhail Gorbachev for being insufficiently authoritarian by comparison with the Chinese leaders who cracked down on the nascent movement for democracy in 1989.

Thus, calling Trump an authoritarian is understatement, not hyperbole. His conception of law and order is antithetical to the rule of law.
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Saturday, July 30, 2016

...................................................................................................................................................................Republicans In The Wilderness
By Adam Ozimek, July 29, 2016

Avik Roy did an amazing interview with Ezra Klein on the state of the Republican party that is a must read. His dour conclusion about republican intellectuals is this: “They cannot admit that their party’s voters are motivated far more by white identity politics than by conservative ideals.”

He goes on:

“Conservative intellectuals, and conservative politicians, have been in kind of a bubble,” Roy says. “We’ve had this view that the voters were with us on conservatism — philosophical, economic conservatism. In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism.”….This soul-searching led Roy to an uncomfortable conclusion: The Republican Party, and the conservative movement that propped it up, is doomed.

This response to Trumpism is in contrast to other republican intellectuals are quickly trying to put together a platform that addresses the newly revealed preferences and desires of the republican base while threading the needle to remain principally conservative. In other words, they take the grievances of the base as a given, as a parameter to tune their basket of policies to.

Avik in contrast appears to view more darkly what Trumpism has revealed. I tend to agree that after watching what Trump says and how precisely he has been successful, figuring out how to appeal to fans of *that* is less important than figuring out how to reduce the levels of intolerance, ignorance, and generally irresponsible view of what a good political leaders looks like.

I am reminded of the Pennsylvania town of Centralia where an underground fire has been burning for decades. Republican intellectuals like Avik, it seems to me, want to figure out how to put out the fire out or move everyone away from the town entirely. Others I see as scrambling to put together architectural plans for houses that can be built on top of ground that is flaming below.

In Centralia, by the way, the population has fallen from over 1,000 in 1980 to about 10 people today. Probably as it should be.
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...................................................................................................................................................................Letter: Trump’s military record speaks for itself
By John Dwan, July 30, 2016

As a retired 30-year Marine Corps reservist who made four trips to Asia as a Marine but missed combat by two weeks, I want my fellow Utah veterans to know that Donald Trump applied for and received five military draft deferments, thereby avoiding any military service.

And now he wants to be commander in chief. A basic rule of American military service is that we are not obligated to obey any illegal order, yet he has said he would issue them, such as torturing prisoners and killing the enemies' families.

His military record and knowledge stands for itself.
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Twitter users are defending Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton after Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich attempted to jab her Thursday night for a supposed lack of patriotism ― all because she wasn’t wearing an American flag pin on her lapel.

Katie Pavlich ✔ @KatiePavlichThe woman who wants to be the next President of the United States is not wearing an American flag lapel pin tonight. #DemsInPhilly7:45 PM - 28 Jul 2016

In a series of replies to Pavlich’s tweet, Daily Beast senior news editor Ben Collins posted screenshots of four male Republican presidential nominees at their own party conventions in years past ― George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, John McCain and Bob Dole. None of them wore flag pins, either.

Ben Collins ✔ @oneunderscore__RT @KatiePavlich The woman who wants to be the next President is not wearing an American flag lapel pin tonight.8:37 PM - 28 Jul 2016

Other users ridiculed Pavlich, noting the huge American flag on stage.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump likewise tried to score points this week over what he called the “pathetic” lack of patriotic regalia at the Democratic convention.

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrumpNot one American flag on the massive stage at the Democratic National Convention until people started complaining-then a small one. Pathetic6:01 AM - 27 Jul 2016

On Wednesday, the North Carolina GOP mocked Clinton’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), for supposedly wearing a Honduran flag pin during his nomination acceptance speech. It turned out to be a Blue Star service pin honoring Kaine’s son, a Marine.

Ironically, many Republicans were impressed, surprised and even envious of the patriotic themes shown at this week’s Democratic convention, leaving them to wonder if the Democratic Party might be the new GOP.

Rich Galen @richgalenHow can it be that I am standing at my kitchen counter sobbing because of the messages being driven at the DNC? Where has the GOP gone?6:38 PM - 28 Jul 2016

Amanda Carpenter ✔ @amandacarpenterI am sure hearing a lot more about God and faith at the DNC than the RNC.8:02 PM - 27 Jul 2016

“Running for president is an act of patriotism,” the political analyst Mark Plotkin wrote last year in a blog post for The Hill. “For political consumption, it is not required to affix the flag pin on your clothes. The life you have led, the acts you have performed, the things you say and believe in: That’s how you should be viewed and judged.”
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...................................................................................................................................................................Supreme Court may be converting on religion
By Richard Wolf, July 30, 2016

The Supreme Court's defense of religious freedom may be on the decline.

Still reeling from the death of its most devout justice, Antonin Scalia, the high court has put preventing discrimination above protecting religion in a series of cases over the past year, from same-sex marriage to abortion and contraception.

It took an obscure order issued on the last day of the recent term for Justice Samuel Alito to drive home the point. By refusing to consider a family-owned pharmacy's objection to a Washington state regulation forcing it to stock and sell emergency contraceptives, he warned, the court was sending an "ominous sign."

"If this is a sign of how religious liberty claims will be treated in the years ahead, those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern." Alito said.

Indeed, to some groups that work at the intersection of law and religion, the court appears to be taking a left turn on issues where it has steered right in the past — a trend that, if it continues, could affect an upcoming case involving a Missouri church's effort to qualify for state playground funds and potentially another challenge to the pharmacy rule.

Under Chief Justices William Rehnquist and John Roberts, the court generally has carved out protections for religious groups and individuals. In recent years, it ruled that a Missouri church could sidestep employment discrimination laws, private corporations could avoid federal health regulations regarding contraceptives, and a New York town could open meetings with Christian prayers.

Last year, it ruled in favor of a Muslim prisoner who sought to wear a beard, a Muslim woman denied a job because she wore a headscarf, and a tiny Arizona church that protested municipal restrictions on street signs.

But after ruling for the craft giant Hobby Lobby in the 2014 contraceptives case, the court did not side with religious non-profits or the government this year in similar cases, instead sending them back for further appellate review. It struck down Texas restrictions on abortion clinics and, on the final day of the term, refused to hear the pharmacy's petition.

Seeing 'red flags'

That case was brought by the Stormans family, which operates Ralph's Thriftway in Olympia, Wash. The family had what conservatives considered a slam-dunk case against a unusual state regulation that pharmacies must fill prescriptions for contraceptives, including morning-after pills that prevent a fertilized egg from reaching the uterus.

"Ralph’s has made a strong case ... that the regulations here are improperly designed to stamp out religious objectors," Alito wrote in his dissent, joined by Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas. In his final footnote, Alito invited another legal challenge.

Kristen Waggoner, who represented the pharmacy through a federal district court victory and an appeals court defeat, says it's too soon to assume the court has shifted on religious freedom cases. But she says the refusal to hear the Stormans case "does cause you to wonder."

"We're seeing the red flags," Waggoner says. “The risk is Americans will no longer have the right to live consistent with their faith without punishment from the government.”

Some defenders of religious freedom don't share Alito's fear for the future.

"The court has been responsive to religious liberty claims in most of the cases in recent years," Eric Rassbach, deputy general counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, says. “I don’t see a reason to think that the court is going to become deaf to religious claims.”

Douglas Laycock, a religious liberty expert at the University of Virginia School of Law, says the risk arises when core issues important to liberals are at stake, such as women's access to all methods of birth control.

"The liberal justices are willing to protect religious liberty when their more favored issues are not at stake, or perhaps when the case is clear enough," Laycock says.

Advancing equality

But when other interests such as preventing discrimination against women, gays and lesbians, or minorities are involved, the court's latest responses please liberal groups."Religious liberty doesn’t give you a right to impose your views on others," Louise Melling, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, says. She sees the court's recent actions as "part of a broader move to advance equality."

Many conservatives are wary that the court — stripped of Scalia's influence and vote, and often controlled by the more mercurial Justice Anthony Kennedy — increasingly may favor government regulators over religious believers.

"What we’re seeing is a sort of shift around social norms” concerning sexuality, says Jay Richards, assistant research professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. “Kennedy is the best Geiger counter. He’s a very good instrument for measuring that.”

The next test will come in the fall, when the justices consider a Missouri church's challenge to being denied state funds for playground resurfacing. A second case involving the pharmacy regulations also could be headed their way in the future, along with lawsuits from merchants who refuse to participate in same-sex weddings."There's more and more of these cases coming up," Waggoner says. "This is not over."
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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Saturday responded to the father of a U.S. Muslim soldier killed in Iraq who accused the mogul of never sacrificing anything for his country.

[snipped]

In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that was published Saturday, Trump said he had sacrificed a lot in his life.

“I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve done― I’ve had― I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.”

“Those are sacrifices?” Stephanopoulos interjected.“Oh sure, I think they’re sacrifices,” Trump said [snipped]
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...................................................................................................................................................................Donald Trump to Father of Fallen Soldier: 'I’ve Made a Lot of Sacrifices'
By Steve Turnham, July 30, 2016

In his first response to a searing charge from bereaved Army father Khizr Khan that he’d “sacrificed nothing” for his country, Donald Trump claimed that he had in fact sacrificed by employing “thousands and thousands of people.” He also suggested that Khan’s wife didn’t speak because she was forbidden to as a Muslim and questioned whether Khan’s words were his own.“Who wrote that? Did Hillary's script writers write it?” Trump said in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard.”

With 100 days left before the fall election, Hillary Clinton's campaign bus wound its way through Donald Trump's America as the Republican nominee picked a new fight with the bereaved father of a Muslim Army captain.

In a well-received Democratic convention speech, Muslim lawyer Khizr Khan said Trump has "sacrificed nothing and no one" for his country. Trump disputed that Saturday, saying he'd given up a lot for his businesses.

"I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard. I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures," he said, in an interview with ABC's "This Week."

He added: "Sure those are sacrifices."

Khan gave a moving tribute to their son, Humayun, who posthumously received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart after he was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004.Trump also reiterated his criticism of Khan's wife, Ghazala, who stood silently on stage, wearing a headscarf. "If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me."Ghazala Khan has said she didn't speak because she's still overwhelmed by her grief and can't even look at photos of her son without crying.Trump's comments sparked immediate outrage on social media, both for attacking a mourning mother and because many considered them racist and anti-Muslim.

In a statement, Clinton said she was "very moved" by Ghazala Khan's appearance.

"This is a time for all Americans to stand with the Khans and with all the families whose children have died in service to our country," she said. "Captain Khan and his family represent the best of America and we salute them."Trump's comments about Khan come a day after, while campaigning in Colorado, he attacked retired four-star general John Allen while holding a rally in front of military aircraft, and slammed a Colorado Springs fire marshal for capping attendance at his event. The fire marshal, Brett Lacey, was recently honored by the city as "Civilian of the Year" for his role in helping the wounded at a 2015 mass shooting at a local Planned Parenthood."Our commander-in-chief shouldn't insult and deride our generals, retired or otherwise," Clinton told a crowd gathered on the factory floor. "That should really go without saying."

She said Americans are living in a time of "really hot politics.""People say all kinds of things. Hateful things. Insulting things," she said. "And sometimes because of all the static going back and forth, we lose track of where we are."

...................................................................................................................................................................Opioid of the MassesTo many, Donald Trump feels good, but he can’t fix America’s growing social and cultural crisis, and the eventual comedown will be harsh.
By J.D. Vance, July, 2016

A few Saturdays ago, my wife and I spent the morning volunteering at a community garden in our San Francisco neighborhood. After a few hours of casual labor, we and the other volunteers dispersed to our respective destinations: tasty brunches, day trips to wine country, art-gallery tours. It was a perfectly normal day, by San Francisco standards.

That very same Saturday, in the small Ohio town where I grew up, four people overdosed on heroin. A local police lieutenant coolly summarized the banality of it all: “It’s not all that unusual for a 24-hour period here.” He was right: in Middletown, Ohio, that too is a perfectly normal day.

Folks back home speak of heroin like an apocalyptic invader, something that assailed the town mysteriously and without warning. Yet the truth is that heroin crept slowly into Middletown’s families and communities—not by invasion but by invitation.Very few Americans are strangers to addiction. Shortly before I graduated from law school, I learned that my own mother lay comatose in a hospital, the consequence of an apparent heroin overdose. Yet heroin was only her latest drug of choice. Prescription opioids—“hillbilly heroin” some call it, to highlight its special appeal among white working-class folks like us—had already landed Mom in the hospital and cost our family dearly in the decade before her first taste of actual heroin. And before her own father gave up the bottle in middle age, he was a notoriously violent drunk. In our community, there has long been a large appetite to dull the pain; heroin is just the newest vehicle.

Of course, the pain itself has increased in recent years, and it comes from many places. Some of it is economic, as the factories that provided many U.S. towns and cities material security have downsized or altogether ceased to exist. Some of it is aesthetic, as the storefronts that once made American towns beautiful and vibrant gave way to cash-for-gold stores and payday lenders. Some of it is domestic, as rising divorce rates reveal home lives as dependable as steel-mill jobs. Some of it is political, as Americans watch from afar while a government machine that rarely tries to speak to them, and acts in their interests even less, sputters along. And some of it is cultural, from the legitimate humiliation of losing wars fought by the nation’s children to the illegitimate sense that some fall behind only because others jump ahead.During this election season, it appears that many Americans have reached for a new pain reliever. It too, promises a quick escape from life’s cares, an easy solution to the mounting social problems of U.S. communities and culture. It demands nothing and requires little more than a modest presence and maybe a few enablers. It enters minds, not through lungs or veins, but through eyes and ears, and its name is Donald Trump.

Last Sunday, the day before Memorial Day, I met a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War at a local coffee shop. “I was lucky,” he told me. “At least I came home. A lot of my buddies didn’t. The thing is, the media still talks about us like we lost that war! I like to think my dead friends accomplished something.” Imagine, for that man, the vengeful joy of a Trump rally. That brief feeling of power, of defiance, of sending a message to the very political and media establishment that, for 45 years, has refused to listen. Trump brings power to those who hate their lack of it, and his message is tonic to communities that have felt nothing but decline for decades.

In some ways, Trump’s large, national coalition defies easy characterization. He draws from a broad base of good people: kind folks who open their homes and hearts to people of all colors and creeds, married couples with happy homes and families who live nearby, public servants who put their lives on the line to fight fires in their communities. Not all Trump voters spend their days searching for an analgesic.

Yet a common thread among Trump’s faithful, even among those whose individual circumstances remain unspoiled, is that they hail from broken communities. These are places where good jobs are impossible to come by. Where people have lost their faith and abandoned the churches of their parents and grandparents. Where the death rates of poor white people go up even as the death rates of all other groups go down. Where too many young people spend their days stoned instead of working and learning.

Many years ago, our neighbor (and my grandma’s old friend) in Middletown moved out and rented his house on a Section 8 voucher—a federal program that offers housing subsidies to low-income people. One of the first folks to move in called her landlord to report a leaky roof. By the time the landlord arrived, he discovered the woman naked on her couch. After calling him, she had started the water for a bath, gotten high, and passed out. Forget about the original leak, now much of the upstairs—including her and her children’s possessions—was completely destroyed. Not every Trump voter lives like this woman, but nearly every Trump voter knows someone who does.

Though the details differ, men and women like my neighbor represent, in the aggregate, a social crisis of historic proportions. There is no group of people hurtling more quickly to social decay. No group of people fears the future more, dies with such frequency from heroin, and exposes its children to such significant domestic chaos. Not long ago, a teacher who works with at-risk youth in my hometown told me, “We’re expected to be shepherds to these children, but they’re all raised by wolves.” And those wolves are here—not coming in from Mexico, not prowling the halls of power in Washington or Wall Street—but here in ordinary American communities and families and homes.What Trump offers is an easy escape from the pain. To every complex problem, he promises a simple solution. He can bring jobs back simply by punishing offshoring companies into submission. As he told a New Hampshire crowd—folks all too familiar with the opioid scourge—he can cure the addiction epidemic by building a Mexican wall and keeping the cartels out. He will spare the United States from humiliation and military defeat with indiscriminate bombing. It doesn’t matter that no credible military leader has endorsed his plan. He never offers details for how these plans will work, because he can’t. Trump’s promises are the needle in America’s collective vein.

The great tragedy is that many of the problems Trump identifies are real, and so many of the hurts he exploits demand serious thought and measured action—from governments, yes, but also from community leaders and individuals. Yet so long as people rely on that quick high, so long as wolves point their fingers at everyone but themselves, the nation delays a necessary reckoning. There is no self-reflection in the midst of a false euphoria. Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.

I’m not sure when or how that realization arrives: maybe in a few months, when Trump loses the election; maybe in a few years, when his supporters realize that even with a President Trump, their homes and families are still domestic war zones, their newspapers’ obituaries continue to fill with the names of people who died too soon, and their faith in the American Dream continues to falter. But it will come, and when it does, I hope Americans cast their gaze to those with the most power to address so many of these problems: each other. And then, perhaps the nation will trade the quick high of “Make America Great Again” for real medicine.
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Republican Donald Trump took a six-point national lead over Democrat Hillary Clinton in at least two polls, from CNN and The Los Angeles Times, immediately following his nomination at his party's convention in Cleveland last week. But that polling bump has since evaporated, as a new Reuters survey finds Clinton is now six points ahead after her own convention.

Meanwhile, a Real Clear Politicsaverage of multiple recent polls puts Trump and Clinton in a dead heat — each claiming 44.3 percent national support — as of Friday. It likewise records the disappearance of Trump's brief lead, which marked only the second time he has ever pulled into first place throughout the whole election cycle per that calculation. See the history of their matchup below.

The Republican Party likes to bill itself as the party of free enterprise. In theory, the GOP opposes regulations on how businesses conduct themselves unless it deals with things like fraud. Of course, that's just how they operate in theory. In reality, it's something very different apparently.

House Bill 5606, sponsored by state Rep. Aric Nesbitt, also prohibits auto manufacturers from dictating fees franchised dealers can charge customers. The legislation allows individual auto dealers to make the business decision whether to charge the transaction fee.

Snyder said direct sales of new vehicles is already banned in the state. This law will explicitly require all automakers to sell through a network of franchised dealers.Earlier Tuesday, General Motors urged the governor to sign the bill.Snyder, who has boasted of making Michigan more hospitable for entrepreneurs, brings Michigan into a growing number of states that have raised obstacles to the California-based electric car company.

And now, Snyder has proven he's more interested in appeasing a company like General Motors than allowing anything close to industry innovation.

Tesla was using a new idea for auto sales, essentially cutting out middlemen in an effort to try and keep costs for its electric cars low. Whether it would work or not remains to be seen, but that's where the free market shows the harsh reality. Not every idea is going to be a winner, and the market will figure that out.

Of course, Snyder isn't trying to keep Tesla safe or anything. He and politicians like him are trying to keep an age-old model viable whether it deserves to be or not.

The problem is that no business model deserves to be protected. If dealerships are an awesome way to sell vehicles, they'll survive just fine. If they are outdated, then they won't. That's how the free market works.

However, Republicans like Snyder may espouse free market principles, but they don't really believe them. Snyder, in particular, has shown that while he may want to make Michigan more friendly for entrepreneurship, he'll sell out entrepreneurs in a heartbeat if their innovations threaten his contributors.

You don't get to play free market advocate when your actions make it clear you're no such thing.
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...................................................................................................................................................................Muslim War Hero Sacrificed Himself for All Americans, Including Donald TrumpThe Republican says he “sacrificed greatly” to run for president. Whatever that means, it’s nothing compared to what Capt. Humayun Khan did.
By Michael Daly, July 29, 2016

The regulation headstone at grave 7986 in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery bears a crescent moon and a star in keeping with the fallen soldier’s faith.

The inscription is precisely what it would have been had his religion been signaled by a cross or a star:

BSM stands for Bronze Star Medal. Khan received it in recognition for his bravery when he saw an orange-colored taxi approaching the gate that he and his soldiers were guarding at their base in Baquba, Iraq on June 8, 2004.

“Hit the dirt,” Khan is said to have ordered his soldiers.

The men obeyed and took cover. Khan himself approached the taxi to investigate. The 27-year-old captain had taken 10 steps when the two Iraqis inside detonated a suicide bomb. He was killed and was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart along with the Bronze Star.

Khan was buried nine days later in Section 60, a 14-acre area among the cemetery’s 624 acres where those who died in Iraq and Afghanistan are interred. An Army chaplain read aloud a letter from Khan’s commanding officer, LT. Col. Dan Mitchell.

“He died selflessly and courageously, tackling the enemy head on. We will not forget him and the noble ideas he stood for.”

Photo By M. R. Patterson

Khan’s parents were among those present at the burial. Khizr and Ghazala Khan had come to America from the United Arab Emirates when their son was 2 and settled in Virginia. He had graduated from a high school named after President Kennedy in 1996. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia in 2000. He enlisted in the U.S. Army with the hope of becoming a military lawyer.

Then, two days after his 25th birthday, terrorists flew hijacked airlines into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Khan deployed to Iraq in March of 2004. He had managed to call home on Mother’s Day. Ghazala Khan had begun to cry.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’m safe.”

That all-American observance was the last time he spoke to her. One month and eight days later, she and her husband and the rest of the family stood at the freshly dug grave during the military ritual. An honor guard solemnly folded the American flag that covered the coffin and an officer in dress uniform presented it to the family.

“On behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful nation,” the officer said.

An imam then recited the Namaz-e-Janaza, the Muslim funeral prayer.

Later that day, the same military ritual was performed at the next grave over, 7987, for Army Special Forces Sgt. First Class Robert J. Mogensen of Leesville, Louisiana. He was 26. He had been killed by an IED in Afghanistan on May 29, 2004.

The grave on other side of Khan, grave 7985, was already occupied by Marine Lance Cpl. Jeremiah E. Savage of Livingston, Tennessee. He and two fellow soldiers had been killed by an IED in Iraq on May 12, 2004. He had been buried on May 27.

“To run for the most powerful yet unforgiving office in the world. There is no greater calling, there is no more selfless an act.”

His sister, Ivanka, echoed her brother’s words, seeming equally deluded in the notion that Donald Trump was engaged in something noble by spreading fear and inciting bigotry and telling lie after lie while insisting he was telling it like it is.

“Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery?” Khizr Khan asked. “Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities.”

The father of the hero buried in grave 7986 in Section 60 then told it like it really is.“You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”A moment people would remember and should be the moment to ensure Trump’s defeat came when Khizr reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat. He took out a blue, brochure-sized document such as is given to new citizens.

“Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy,” he said. “In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of law.’”

The mother stood in the silence of a parent whose grieving heart was still at that grave in section 60 where the headstone has a crescent moon and a star.
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When she accepted the Democratic presidential nomination last night, one of the key points that Hillary Clinton made in her case against her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, is that the billionaire former reality television is too thin-skinned for the job.

“Donald Trump can't even handle the rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign,” she said. “He loses his cool at the slightest provocation. When he's gotten a tough question from a reporter. When he's challenged in a debate. When he sees a protestor at a rally. Imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis.“A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.”

If there was a person inside the Trump campaign to point out to the candidate that an over-the top response to Clinton’s speech and the parade of speakers criticizing him last night might just prove Clinton’s point for her, he apparently wasn’t listening.

During the Clinton speech itself, the Trump campaign fired off angry emails at the rate of one every four minutes -- 15 of them in less than an hour -- criticizing Clinton on topics ranging from immigration policy to the Middle East to the Clinton Foundation.

Within half an hour of Clinton’s final words, Team Trump released what seemed to be a hastily written statement from Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller that called her remarks “an insulting collection of clichés and recycled rhetoric,” among other things.

“Hillary Clinton talks about unity, about E Pluribus Unum, but her globalist agenda denies American citizens the protections to which they are all entitled – tearing us apart. Her radical amnesty plan will take jobs, resources and benefits from the most vulnerable citizens of the United States and give them to the citizens of other countries. Her refusal to even say the words ‘Radical Islam’, or to mention her disaster in Libya, or her corrupt email scheme, all show how little she cares about the safety of the American people.”

By Friday morning, Trump had moved on to Twitter, where he began by insulting Clinton and some of the people who spoke against him during the final nights of the Democratic National Convention.

Three-time New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who savaged Trump’s business record on Wednesday night, was granted the nickname that Trump used to reserve for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio during the primary campaign.

“‘Little’ Michael Bloomberg, who never had the guts to run for president, knows nothing about me. His last term as Mayor was a disaster!” Notably, Trump didn’t bother trying to refute Bloomberg’s criticisms. Nor did he go after the former mayor’s business record, which may not be too much of a surprise, even if you take Trump’s word that he is actually worth the $10 billion he claims, and many experts do not, Bloomberg’s more than $40 billion fortune makes Trump look like a piker.

“If Michael Bloomberg ran again for Mayor of New York, he wouldn't get 10 percent of the vote - they would run him out of town!” Trump added for good measure.

Retired Marine Corps four-star General John Allen, who endorsed Clinton Thursday and slammed Trump for his promise to compel the US military to engage in war crimes, also came under Trump’s angry gaze.

“General John Allen, who I never met but spoke against me last night, failed badly in his fight against ISIS. His record = BAD,” Trump tweeted.

Trump, of course, went after Clinton, blasting her for delivering a speech that went on too long (though it was nearly 20 minutes shorter than the one he had delivered just a week before). He added somewhat mysteriously, “Crooked Hillary Clinton made up facts about me and "forgot" to mention the many problems of our country in her very average scream!”

One person Trump did not dare attack, though, was Khizr Khan, a Muslim immigrant to the US from Pakistan, whose 27-year-old son, a US Army captain, was killed in Iraq protecting his troops from a suicide car bomber.

Khan, coolly furious, reminded Trump that his proposed ban on Muslim immigration would have prevented his son from being born in the United States. An attorney who has practiced law in Washington, DC, Khan questioned whether Trump had ever even read the US Constitution, and offered to lend him a copy.

Then, in the most powerful blow landed on Trump all evening, the father of the fallen soldier addressed Trump directly. “Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of the brave patriots who died defending America — you will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing. And no one.”

Trump and his team did not address Khan’s criticism at all on Friday, but for a large portion of America, it turns out, they had little reason to. Fox News, the Republican-leaning cable news operation, declined to air the speech.
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